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Wednesday, 3 July 2013

The long, generic twilight of the BookWorld

We spent last session playing Zpocalypse again, to a much greater success than the first time, and we'll be playing that next session too. Since there was only like half a page worth of quotes from that session, I figure it would be better to post the two sessions in one go instead, so that's happening in next week's post.

Meanwhile, we're going back to the BookWorld to continue the investigations of the Jurisfiction agents. They've now left Wuthering Heights and decide to go and check out Twilight, because if you're looking for a modern novel that's badly written, you might as well just start there.

Amongst all the Generics in Forks High School's cafeteria is Bella Swan, who seems more preoccupied with dreaming about her bewuved Edward than the fact she's being accused of multiple homicides. (Each to their own, and that ...) And then the agents have a brainwave as to how to solve the problem of Bella missing from the narrative if she's brought into questioning: have Frankenstein's Monster take her place.

Marianne Dashwood: “Oh hello. There’s a lot of you today, what’s going on?”
Alice: “Murder over in Wuthering Heights, Miss.”
Marianne Dashwood: “Oh dear. Who, if I may be so bold?”
Alice: “Hindley. And the horses wouldn’t tell us anything about it.”
Marianne Dashwood: “I’m not surprised.”

Hastings: “We have a sketch. We know she was wearing modern trainers. Do you recognise her at all? Imagine it’s a better sketch.”
Marianne Dashwood: “Is that the one from Charlie Brown?”
Hastings: “If that’s who the murderer is, yes.”
Player: “Let’s go and kick the shit out of Charlie Brown!”

“The little bird is behind everything!”

Marianne Dashwood (to Outlander): “Sir, remember last time we met? You said you’d bring back a spacehopper.”

“Just make sure you don’t take the spacehopper with you into the main book.”
“That would be AWESOME. Hearing that at the back: Boing! Boing! Boing!”

Marianne Dashwood: “We ARE aware of how the BookWorld works, sir.”
Hastings: “That’s fine; it’s just that I’m not, so I don’t assume anything anymore.”

Player: “Unfortunately, your plot has now derailed – we’re all going into Twilight just to fuck it up.”
GM (innocently): “Why would THAT ever be an objective?”

GM: “The world is kind of strangely flat, and not described very well.”
Player: “It’s feeling very generic at the minute, which is exactly what we’re looking for.”

“It’s a crowd of five all over the place.”

“There is a remarkable likeness between Hastings’ drawing and the people in general.”

“Some of these look like poor, generic copies of another writer’s work. Except for the sparkling.”

George: “Do I look better for being in this world?”
GM: “Yeah, the colour scheme kind of fits you.”

GM: “There’s one table that appears to have not quite that generic characters, because they at least look different. And you see another table which is full of people that if the sun hit them, you’re pretty sure they would sparkle. But they just sit there and look BEAUTIFUL.”

GM: “With eyes that are kind of golden and ochre and a lot of other adjectives. It’s as if a grammasite has gone in there and barfed.”

“Load thesaurus.”

Player 1: “I can’t think of anything decent to write, so I just throw in lots of descriptive words.”
Player 2: “I need a larger word count for my publisher.”
Player 3: “The sickening thing is she’s fucking rich off writing that drivel, and we’re all poor.”

“I could write a better story than Twilight if you stick a twig up my arse, put the other end in tar, put me on a trampoline in a moving lift, bounced up and down and wrote on the wall.”

Player: “I’ve got such a high score and I failed. I must be distracted by the strange garbs.”
GM: “Or distracted by the really beautiful people on the other table.”

“I think we should (mumble mumble).”
“Was any of that in English?”

“Bella is the girl from Snoopy.”
“The girl from Snoopy has more personality.”

“I’m from the Indian Corporation, full of psychics.”
“Telephone sales people.”
“We’re not telephone sales people, that is a misnomer.”

“I’m not doing anything racist! The accent is not racist. It’s when you start saying racist things in it.” (said in a fake, Indian accent)

“I’m allowed to do accents outside of my own Caucasian background. Otherwise I’d never get to do my Jamaican accent, and I love that.”

Player (newly awake): “Oh god, we’re in Twilight?”

Seldon: “I find myself surprised.”

George: “In this place, I then resolve to fix my design.”
Player 1: “Okay.”
Player 2: “You’re going to become a Twilight vampire instead of Frankenstein’s monster?”
George: “I hope not. What would be the difference?”
GM: “You would be beautiful and you would sparkle in the sunlight, and you wouldn’t kill people.”

“That sounds like an unwritten Twilight sex scene.”

“We’re gonna get everyone to read The Moonstone if it kills us.”

George: “How far along in the book are you?”
Bella: “Right now? Not very far.”
George: “Perhaps you should come with us before any harm is done.”
Bella: “Why?”
Outlander: “Because your books are ruining the lives of THOUSANDS. HUNDREDS of THOUSANDS of people.”

George: “He is bitter. He has no book.”
Outlander: “I don’t give a crap about that!”

Hastings: “So we have to kill both post-vampire Bella AND pre-vampire Bella?”
Bellman: “No, just the guilty one.”
Hastings: “But we don’t know which one’s guilty.”
Outlander: “Can we kill ALL of them?!”

Alice: “I don’t like the look of that Edward, he seems so fierce.”
Bella: “Yeah, but he’s so gorgeous?”

Hastings: “Bella Swan you are hereby charged with a fiction infraction. If you would please be kind enough to come with us. Anything you do or say or write can be taken in evidence against you. If you have any further information to give to us, it would be appreciated.”
Bella: “Have you got a Generic that can take my place while you remove me?”
Hastings: “Yeah anyone on that table over there will do.”

Outlander: “I’m pretty sure we could get a generic who walked in the door today, an hour ago. And they could probably do a better job than you, you uncharacterised piece of slime.”
Hastings: “That is unfair! TRUE, but unfair.”

Alice: “I would be willing to have a go at replacing Bella.”
Outlander: “No, Alice! For the love of god, no!”
Hastings: “No, it would be unfair of us to alter this literary work to improve it.”

Alice: “Well, I shouldn’t be seeing that boy Edward. He looks VERY mean.”
Betteredge: “He does indeed look very mean. I believe, for the sake of literacy of all ages, we should allow George to step in.”
Outlander: “You want GEORGE to step in as Bella?!”
Betteredge: “Yes!”
Hastings: “No, that would only work if George stepped in for Edward.”
Alice: “Well, perhaps if I fixed his hair, we MIGHT pull it off.”
Betteredge: “Exactly.”
George: “I’m prepared to fix my design.”

Alice: “George should have to be a little shorter. Perhaps we could find some mushrooms he could eat? That always works for me.”
Outlander: “They’re growing on his leg, look.”

George: “Generic Bella! Before we go, there should be a treatise on your condition: it is wrong!”
Generic replacement Bella: “A what?”
George: “You are doomed to a life of misery, for your author is a woman who hates you, and considers you to be a woman who has done nothing but wrong.”
Generic replacement Bella: “But I’m, like, HER. You know? I’m kind of like my author? ‘Cause she kind of puts herself into my shoes?”
Hastings: “I’ve never read the book personally, I’ve only heard people talking about it, but according to what people say, I thought that you basically get stalked, molested, raped –”
George: “Don’t tell her her future!”
Hastings: “… Broken …”
Generic replacement Bella: “What?! But it’s my Edward, right?”
Hastings: “Yeah.”
Generic replacement Bella: “Then it’s okay.”
Hastings: “… Okay then.”
Alice: “I told you he was an unpleasant boy.”

“We accidentally shoot her in the head on the way?”
“Yes, yes we can! She tried to escape!”